Mandrake the Magician (1939)

SYNOPSIS: Mandrake battles "The Wasp" who is after a new destructor ray.COMMENT: Very disappointing. Mandrake jettisons his trademark top hat soon after the introductory chapter and never once - never once, mind you - gestures hypnotically. Thus the whole reason for the comic strip's existence is negated in one fell blow. Further indignities are the complete absence of Mandrake's companion, Princess Narda, and the demotion of Lothar from Mandrake's giant Nubian servant to a humdrum, discreetly clothed chauffeur. The aim seems to have been to get rid of the costumes and make Mandrake and his pals as ordinary as possible. True, Mandrake still performs a few magic tricks, but even these are colorless and dull. We could put up with all these waterings-down, if only the serial had the one quality all fans demand, namely thrills. But not only are all the cliffhangers -- well, almost all of them, the miniature work isn't bad and the explosive special effects are startlingly real, but there are not nearly enough of them -- tame, but there's little intermediate action. A car chase in the middle of Chapter 1 in which the pursuing vehicle plunges over an embankment is the best of them, but even this is undermined by clumsy process screen work. Technically, the serial is extremely amateurish. The photography is flat, the sets are dull, the 2nd unit work minimal, the action scenes few and far between. As for the acting, Warren Hull makes a colorless Mandrake, whilst the support players seem to hang around merely to waste our time. True Dick Curtis appears briefly, but most of the heavies, including "The Wasp" himself, are even more tepid than Mr Hull. As for the identity of the poorly-costumed "Wasp", who cares?OTHER VIEWS: Trite, banal, pinch-penny, penny-dreadful serial. Having blown the budget purchasing the rights, Columbia set out to make the picture as cheaply as possible. The players vary from the second-rate Hull to the fifth-rate Weston and Kikume. The directors are Sam Nelson, quite a proficient action specialist, but here forced to work with a minuscule budget; and Norman Deming, a no-talent quickie megaphoner, promoted from the assistant director ranks. Writer Joseph Poland, a specialist in cutting corners, was shortly to join the Republic serial unit. Benjamin Kline, who could light a set faster than you or I could strike a match, was an old Mascot veteran.. As for theater owners, luckless enough to book this serial on the strength of its title, let's hope there are no Mandrake fans in their audiences.

Mandrake, the Magician features a dashing, young hero who may not have any super-powers to speak of, but, being a magician (the worlds' best, of course) he does manage to foil the bad guys with a well-timed magic trick, or two. And if that happens to fail, Mandrake can certainly be counted on to throw a mean punch, sometimes heroically taking on up to five of The Wasp's ruthless henchmen all at one time.Presented in 12 super-exciting chapters, this enjoyable, 1939 "Cliffhanger" has Mandrake and his loyal pals taking on The Wasp, a dastardly evil criminal, who will stop at nothing in order to get his greedy hands on Prof. Houston's amazing radium-energy machine.For plenty of laughs and excitement, check out all of the B-Grade action!

If you have stumbled upon this title and think you will see the hero of your comic book youth brought to the screen you will be disappointed. Mandrake has been shoehorned into a stock serial plot that could have used any one of a dozen heroes from Batman to Dick Tracy. Once again, a wonder invention cooked up by a solitary recluse in his basement is stolen from a mostly unguarded private residence and now the world is threatened. The police and the FBI are apparently helpless so it falls upon Mandrake to set things right. Alas, this Mandrake is a pale imitation of the comic wizard. The hypnotically gesturing magus of the comics has become a stage magician, doing card tricks on an ocean liner. Instead of confusing his enemies with black magic, he slugs it out with his fists, implausibly whipping two or three thugs at once, all without displacing his top hat.This is not to say the serial isn't entertaining. But most will likely view it as a 70 year old curiosity rather than the exciting thriller it was meant to be. Whether you want to invest almost 4 hours of your life watching it is the question. Incidentally, the title music would later be reused in the Columbia serial "The Vigilante, Fighting Hero of the West" in a somewhat re-orchestrated form. The story, of course, would be recycled again and again.

"Mandrake, the Magician"(1939 - 214 minutes - 12 episodes), is one of the classics B&W cinema serials of Columbia, directed by Sam Nelson and Norman Deming. Based on the known Comics created by Lee Falk and Phill Davis in 1924 and written by Joseph F. Poland, Basil Dickey and Ned Dandy. Mandrake (the actor Warren Hull) is a sagacious detective who is traveling in a maritime cruise when he knows the professor Hudson (the actor Forbes Murray), the author of a machine that uses the energy of the radio waves. Developed for the good, the powerful device becomes a dangerous weapon when it falls in the hands of an evil genius known as "Wasp". Mandrake and his faithful assistant, Lothar (the actor Al Kikume), will fight Wasp and his gang, living an intensely battle between the good and the evil. The Mandrake's dress style with the black and red layer, ternary and top-hat, had immortalized the figure of the magician. The English word "Mandrake" is the name of a root that was always associated with magical powers and miraculous cures. Lothar was an African prince and one of the first black character treated in a serious way in Comic books, he was always considered as an intelligent and loyal ally. With original special effects for that time, the film deserves reverence to the great performance of Warren Hull, that gave life to one of the biggest icons of the Comic books of all times.